1.4 Network Hardware Flashcards
What is a hub?
A device that transmits data packets from one computer to all connected computers
What is a switch?
A device that routes data packets to a specific destination rather than broadcasting to every device
What is the difference between a Hub and a Swirch
A hub transmits data packets to all connected devices
A switch transmits it only to a specific destination/device
What is a router?
A device that determines the most efficient path for a data packet to travel
What does the router use to determine the path taken by a data packet?
The list of all networks the router is connected to (routing table)
The destination address of the data packet
The congestion of each of the paths
What is a Wireless Access Point (WAP)?
A device that converts wireless data packets to wired, and back again
How can data be transferred between a wireless device and wired network?
The wireless device transmits data packets to a nearby wireless access point (WAP)
The data packets are then converted into wired data packets and transmitted to the hub or switch that passes them to the destination
The process is also carried out in reverse
What is a Network Interface Card (NIC)?
A chip or card that converts data from a device into a format compatible with a network and vice versa.
What is a Media Access Control (MAC) address?
A unique identifier for a device connecting to a network
What is a data packet?
A chunk of data with a destination address
What is data collision?
When two packets are sent at the exact same time causing them to interfere with one another
What is a hop?
A connection between two routers, forming part of a path
What is Ethernet Cat-5?
A type of copper cable used to physically connect computer network. It’s performance is defined in the Ethernet standard
